GRIFFES: Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan / The White Peacock

During his brief life (cut short by pneumonia when he was just 35), Charles Griffes was able to compose music of distinctive beauty. He was fascinated by the music of the French-Impressionist composers Debussy and Ravel but was also influenced by the Russian sounds of Scriabin and Mussorgsky and a German post-romantic idiom. Ultimately, Griffes found his own unique voice that blended all of these characteristics. Griffes had a passion for verse and almost all of his orchestral scores are linked in some way to poetic or literary ideas. The works on this disc are notable examples of Griffes’ “tone pictures” with the exception of the Poem for Flute and Orchestra, a miniature tone poem without associated text or images.